


thought i knew what my weaknesses were

by anatomied



Series: send our love to its reward down in hell [6]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Fake AH Crew, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:25:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9091360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anatomied/pseuds/anatomied
Summary: Ryan and Ray spend six days alone on a stakeout. They do a lot of nothing, and some other things in between.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here we are. More Ray and Ryan development. Next up I'll probably head backwards in my timeline and do more of a Ryan character study. Possibly a Ray one afterwards? We'll see.

Rockford Hills, Ryan decides, is a place that upsets him on a level that nearly becomes spiritual.

This is actually kind of a major problem, because the rich love Rockford, and the crew loves what the rich covet the most. What’s worse about this trip is that it isn’t quite a heist or a robbery. There’s nothing here to take, nothing around for him to inflict any damage upon. The only things close by are Ray and the apartment they’ve commandeered across the street from another branch of Fleeca Bank.

Of course Ryan won’t damage either of those. Hurting one of those things would just plain look bad, and hurting the other would be unthinkable.

But Rockford Hills itself is still shitty in a special suburban way. Maybe it reminds Ryan too much of the places that he came from. Maybe it’s just different enough where it pulls all the right strings in his past but makes him feel like a fucking idiot for it. But whatever it is, he finds himself on day three of the stakeout staring moodily out the window.

“I fucking hate this shit,” Ray mumbles somewhere behind him.

They’ve been exchanging some permutation of that thought back and forth now for around twenty-four hours. Stakeouts are something neither of them are particularly good at, even with Ray’s job as a sniper. Geoff denies there’s a difference. But there is. They are both people who love a particular kind of action and an even more particular kind of adrenaline. So all of this fucking waiting and watching just makes them into even shittier people.

Ryan turns back around to face the apartment. Ray’s dangling halfway off the couch, holding his DS at an angle so he can look at it without lifting his head up. “Seriously, dude, fuck this,” Ray adds.

“Hey.” Ryan moves back over and settles on the five full inches of space left on the couch with Ray stretched all the way across it. “I tried to tell Geoff.”

“Fuck Geoff,” Ray enunciates, his eyes tracking something moving quickly on the screen. “And fuck Rockford Hills. We should blow this shit off and go do something fun. Throwing myself off of Mount Chiliad would be better than watching all these rich douchebags go about their daily lives twenty-four seven.”

More than one thing has shifted since they've entered a very badly defined kind of relationship. It’s not that Ray’s gotten more open. It’s more like he’s more open to being annoyed and exasperated in ways that even border on real.

“Once we get out of here,” Ryan begins (again).

Ray gives him the look, the signature Ray look that means _don’t ever fucking say that to me again_. It’s the same look that ended the conversation the last three times.

“Okay,” Ryan cuts himself off, standing up. “I’m going to make coffee.”

“Fucking gross.”

“What if I told you I hid a few of those fucking energy drinks you love when we got here so you wouldn’t drink them all right away?”

Ray sits straight up on the couch, the DS still balanced between his hands. “As long as that’s not a lie, I am going to have to seriously consider marrying you.” Ryan rummages around in the fridge for a few moments before taking out two Monsters and setting them down with a soft clink on the counter. Abruptly Ray makes it all the way from the living room to the kitchen in about thirty seconds flat. It probably means that he climbed right over the couch to get there.

Ray pauses as he looks at Ryan. “I mean, we can think about getting married after we tell Geoff about what’s been going on.”

Ryan slides one of the cans closer before turning around and picking up the kettle from the stove. “Here, you addict.” Definitely ignoring the whole part where they have to tell Geoff _yeah, your sniper and your muscle are kind of sort of maybe a thing_.

Geoff will fucking combust. It would be kind of funny except for the bit where his heart might actually explode, which would be bad. But they’ll cross that bridge when they get there.

Ray makes a vaguely cheerful noise that is punctuated by the can’s hiss as it pops open. Even the sound makes Ryan shake his head. It’s not as though he’s particularly healthy - none of the crew is, after all. But near death experiences have the novelty of burning calories along the way. But Ray and Michael both guzzle energy drinks like they might die without it. Maybe they will.

Ryan, to his own credit, does recognize the hypocrisy of saying this as he pours himself two cups of coffee into mismatched mugs and prepares both at the same time.

The fact is that this isn’t their apartment. It’s Geoff’s, actually, one of nine or so Geoff has around the city. They are distinctly separate from safehouses. Those are marked in the map in the main penthouse with red thumbtacks. Gavin picked out green ones for what they’ve called anything from _shitty stakeout bases_ , according to Michael, all the way to the pithy-but-fitting title Ray came up with: _fucking garbage, and also trash_.

 _Those are synonyms_ , Ryan told him with a smile, and Ray flipped him off and told him where he could shove his college education. It took all over Ryan’s flimsy self-control to not throw in that synonyms were something that showed up in middle school.

Basically, though: these apartments aren’t among the nicer safehouses. They’re reminiscent of the places that Ryan used to live in before reaching Los Santos - one bedroom, one bathroom, both likely to collapse into the apartment below one day. But it does have an absolutely magnificent view of Fleeca Bank.

Ryan carefully brings the two cups of coffee into the living room in time to watch Ray flop down onto the couch face-down. It’s a sort of artful collapse. The two of them have been switching between the bed and the couch for the past few days. Even with the nascent beginnings of a relationship, sleeping in the same bed isn’t part of the package yet. Too paranoid. Too on edge. It’s Ray’s turn for the couch, and he seems to be trying to get comfortable as early as possible.

“What do you want to do when we get out of here?”

It’s another three days, but Ryan likes to think ahead.

“Don’t know,” Ray says. He tips back one of his drinks for a few moments before making a decision. “Rob someone, probably. Shoot a few cops. Whatever.”

“Two-man it, then.”

“Yeah.”

“What, no warm and fuzzy feelings for the rest of the crew?”

“Fuck no.” Ray sets his drink back down as Ryan takes a sip of his own coffee. “It’s great not having to deal with Gavin fucking everything up all the time.” As much shit as Ray talks, Ryan can hear the tinge of something else in his tone. He misses the crew. They both do, in their own little ways. But they’ll never verbally admit it. After Tampa, after - whatever they are now, they have to be especially careful with what they say and who they say it to.

They learned that lesson already. Ryan rigged up Quake, the original, on two PCs they stole from some rich asshole musician last week, and pretty much swept the competition until it came to Jack. Ray was pissed, though, the kind of pissed he only gets when someone’s clearly outdoing him at a video game, and muttered _what do I have to do to fucking distract you and win, suck your dick or something_ in Ryan’s general direction.

Where Ryan would’ve laughed it off before, he actually said, with a little too much seriousness in his tone, _hey, if it’s a standing offer, I sure as hell wouldn’t say no_ and got the dirtiest look in the world in return. It wasn’t Ryan’s best moment or anything, but he definitely wasn’t lying.

Ray grumbles a little more to himself and reopens his DS. Ryan plucks the book that he’s been taking notes in over the past few days off of the coffee table. It’s mostly the times that security shifts over, generally when the cashiers leave, what time the bank’s busiest - all the little details. This whole assignment was going to be Ray and Michael initially, until Jack interrupted Geoff and asked if he really meant Ray Narvaez, Jr., and Michael Jones.

Geoff had paused, recalculated, and then told Ryan that he was going to have to suck it up, because he wrote “those good college guy notes”, as Geoff called them.

So here they are. Normally Ryan wouldn’t complain about more time with Ray and less time with, say, Gavin. This is a different scenario, though. Ray shoves his glasses up enough to rub his eyes a little. He yawns. Ryan reaches for the remote and turns it over to the news. Los Santos has been quiet for a little while now - just your average gang wars, cold-blooded murders, and corrupt politics. Nothing special. Nothing of theirs.

They sit there for ten minutes. Ray’s DS chirps a few times. Ryan stares blankly at aerial footage of a car accident a few blocks away.

“Let’s head up to the roof,” Ray says.

“Why?”

Ryan watches as Ray closes his DS and leaves it on the table. He rummages around next to the couch before yanking out the guitar case Jack and Gavin rigged up together as a good way to camouflage Ray’s rifle where it’s necessary. “Why the fuck not?” Ray says, hoisting the case over the couch to sit in front of him. Which is a signal. Which could mean one of a few dozen things, but it means nothing good.

“Okay,” Ryan says, and picks up his coffee as they go.

\---

“Planning to shoot someone?” Ryan asks.

He’s reclined against an old air conditioning unit. It hums against his back as he stretches his legs out and takes a sip of his coffee. The wind’s a lot worse up here, but he’s getting to watch as Ray sets up his rifle. It’s not something he gets to see too often. They’re usually on opposite ends of the heist - Ryan on the ground, Ray on a rooftop.

Ray glances back at him. “Dude, of course not. I was just planning to scope out your competition.”

“For what?” Ryan runs his finger around the rim of the mug.

“Me,” Ray says firmly. “I am like prime God damn real estate. In high demand.”

Ryan laughs a little. It sounds mean, but come on. Seriously. “Okay. Sure, Ray. I believe you.”

“Don’t get too confident,” Ray says, laying down on his stomach, bringing the stock of the rifle to rest against his shoulder. He presses his eye to the scope and audibly inhales. “I’m window shopping for another boyfriend, Ry. Right now. It’s happening.” Ryan bites down hard on his lower lip to avoid saying something shitty, like _are we actually boyfriends now_ , because that’s not a term Ray’s used before.

In fact, Ray doesn’t seem to have realized he said it. Which means he’s been using it - in his head, maybe. Ryan doesn’t want to scare Ray off too bad by pointing it out. He'll let the statement stand on its own two feet.

“It’s cool,” Ryan says, looking down at the surface of his coffee. “It’s all fine. I’ll just kill him when I’ve got some spare time. Which - I do right now, now that I think about it.”

Ray rolls his eyes. Ryan can’t see it, but it’s audible in his voice. “Like you can throw a knife from a fucking apartment rooftop and hit one random dude in a crowd.”

“Ah,” Ryan says, moving over a little to sit next to Ray on the roof instead of behind him. “But he’s not just a random guy. He’s your new boyfriend. And that won’t do. If I’m not good enough, next thing I know, I’ll show up at your apartment and you’ll be playing Street Fighter with him. Then what am I going to do with all my precious time off, Ray?”

“Whatever you were doing before, probably. Lurking all ominously and shit.”

“I don’t lurk,” Ryan begins, outraged.

“You lurk harder than anyone I’ve ever fucking met, dude.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“Nah. Not tonight. I’m super busy, actually.”

Ryan laughs again. Ray cracks one of those barely there smiles. And Ryan realizes how fucking normal this is for them. Sitting on a roof together, one of them with a gun, kind of flirting, kind of talking shit. They had a conversation while in Tampa - _do you ever miss your normal person life_ \- and Ryan said then that he wouldn’t go back for anything. And he wouldn’t. Especially not now that he has this.

He’s thought about it a few times. He’s thought about how he wouldn’t give this up, no matter the stakes. It used to mean the life he has in general - with the crew, stealing and getting away with it, on the edge of death at any moment.

Now he means this. Ray and Ryan, Ryan and Ray. It’s a very romantic era idea. A little too Austen, where it almost makes Ryan feel a little nauseous at his own sentiment.

Whatever. He’s been shot in the gut before. He can handle this.

Ryan sets his coffee down off to the side. “Alright. What’re we really doing up here? You’re in short sleeves, Ray, for God’s sake.”

Ray pulls his head back from the scope finally to give him an annoyed look.

“Also, tie your fucking shoes sometime,” Ryan continues.

“Whatever, _Mom_ ,” Ray says, flipping him off, and Ryan honestly cannot believe that this is the object of his affections right here, this scrawny Puerto Rican kid in an old purple hoodie and thick-rimmed glasses with an arm that sometimes just falls off. With an enormous pink rifle, of course. But he can believe it at the same time.

“I’m your boyfriend,” Ryan points out. “I can pressure you about things like that now.”

Ray pauses. “Yeah,” he says softly, “you’re my boyfriend now.” He seems to be finally realizing what’s going on. “Jesus Christ.”

“No second thoughts?” Ryan is smiling even though there’s a little bit of apprehension.

Ray’s tone is decisive. “Nope.” He sits up finally. “Hey. Come on over here. Let me teach you how to use this thing. No half-assed shooting out of a car window at a helicopter, like, two feet away from you. I mean real shit.”

Ryan stares at him for a moment. It occurs to him that the one thing Ray seems to have started doing since their relationship started moving along is teaching him. Ray teaches all the time, really, usually in an annoyed way - _no, Gavin, here’s how you put a rifle together, holy fuck_. But it’s different with Ryan. Ray takes his time. He walks him through strings in Street Fighter V, making eye contact to make sure he’s got it. Then he lets him go and experiment once he does.

“I mean,” Ryan says, even as he takes the rifle and they begin to exchange places. “You want me to teach you something? I feel like this teacher-student thing is really one-sided here. I’m older than you. I know lots of shit.”

“What? You going to lecture me about Shakespeare and other old dead white dudes?”

Ryan lays down on the cold concrete. He sets the stock of the rifle against his shoulder. Eye to the scope. “Nah. Could teach you to throw knives, though.” It’s something he’d like to see - Ray with a knife and not looking a little uncomfortable with the concept. Ray’s silent for a moment. They sit there together, Ryan’s own breathing loud in his ears.

“Fuck it,” Ray says. “Yeah. Why not. Knives it is.” Suddenly a cool hand presses against Ryan’s spine. He tilts his head away from the scope to look at Ray. The sniper’s sitting cross-legged, but he’s got his fingers trailing gently up Ryan’s back. It’s something they started doing on the couch in the apartment - Ryan’s hand tracing slowly up Ray’s spine until some of the tension diffused. “You need to calm the fuck down, man. The gun does like, seventy percent of the work. Why do you think I signed up for this?”

“The gun’s recoil,” Ryan begins.

“Who gives a shit,” Ray interrupts, expansively pointing towards the roof behind them. And it’s true. Ryan’s used to firing miniguns. He’s used to wielding shotguns that will knock you on your ass if you don’t brace yourself. But Ryan’s laying down, and if anything, he’s a bigger guy than Ray. More body mass to move. And if he does move, he’s got plenty of space.

“What am I even aiming at?” Ryan asks.

Ray shrugs. “Whatever. Maybe not a person this time, though, so we don’t blow our cover.”

“Ray.”

“Okay, okay, fine. Fucking demanding. Like a true mom. Uh. Get a solid hit on that stop sign on the corner there. If you happen to graze someone, oh well. Better have health insurance.”

Ryan chuckles. He has to rotate a little in order to face the stop sign on the corner, though, which means he ends up pressed right against Ray. Okay, happy accident. Ray’s hand stills at the small of Ryan’s back. “Alright. Good angle. Maybe. We’ve got a cross-wind.”

“Ninety degrees,” Ryan says idly.

Ray makes a little hum of assent. “About, yeah. I’d say - eight miles per hour? Four hundred yards out.”

“Jesus,” Ryan grumbles. “You complain about me doing math and being a college guy. And here you are, eyeballing distances and wind speed.”

“Shut up, nerd. Through some very complex math,” Ray continues, “that is totally not just multiplying and dividing, I’d say you need two minutes of angle. So turn that little knob there counterclockwise. Two clicks. That gives you one minute of angle per click. The one on the right side is half a minute of angle per click. And the left is -”

“The left’s the focus. I got you.”

Ray sounds a little delighted. “See, this is why you’re my favorite.”

“Aw, thanks, Ray.”

“Don’t let it get to your fucking head. I’ll still tell everyone if you miss this shot.”

“Ray,” Ryan says, “how can I possibly miss, with your professional tutelage?”

“ _Tutelage_ ,” Ray repeats. “Fuck off, you pretentious fuck. Just take the shot already.”

“Mm,” Ryan says. He inhales and stills. The scope wavers a little less. He focuses in a little. The very center of the stop sign sits in the center of what he can see. He pulls back on the trigger - not hard enough to jostle the gun, but enough to be sure. And the rifle pushes back against his shoulder, a harder recoil in one shot compared to the steady continuous kickback of some of his rifles.

The center of the sign blows out, metal tearing apart. Jesus. No wonder Ryan’s caught sight of the bruises against Ray’s left shoulder, an ugly purple and black. Maybe that’s what he’ll get him for Christmas - one of those shoulder pads people use, usually for shotguns. Anything might help. But at the same time, he doesn’t think Ray’ll wear it.

Ray hums a little. “Let me see.” Ryan hands over the rifle and watches as Ray just sits there, not even bothering to lay down, in order to take a good look at the sign. There’s some real confidence in the way he fiddles with the focus in one hand and holds the rifle in the other. Ryan leans back a little, his hands resting on the concrete, as Ray assesses the damage.

“Mm. Okay. Not bad. One day we’ll get into moving targets and shit.”

“Aw, am I in the beginners’ course, Ray?”

“Kind of,” Ray says. “Not really. I mean - depending on who you ask. Gavin would definitely have a basic course called _what end of the gun does the bullet come out of_ , I can tell you that.”

“So I’m better than Gavin. Forgive me if I’m wrong here, but I’d say that’s a bar just about anyone can trip over.”

Ray lets out a full laugh at that. “Alright, smartass.” He reaches over and ruffles Ryan’s hair a little, which just feels wrong. His hair is probably sticking up in a dozen different undignified directions. Ryan makes a dissatisfied noise and tries to smooth it back down just a bit, which only makes Ray laugh harder. The embarrassment is worth it for making Ray laugh that hard.

Ryan drags Ray up by his hoodie’s well-worn sleeve. He snatches up his coffee as they go. “C’mon. Let’s get inside before you freeze to death.”

“I’m fine,” Ray insists. But he scoops up the case, because he seems to have come to terms with losing.

“Also,” Ryan adds, “if you get to show off with your minutes of angle and whatever, I get to show off with knives.”

“You show off all the fucking time.”

“Usually you’re sitting on top of a building when I do. So let’s go. I can show you a way to reverse a knife grip that’ll make Gavin shit himself.”

Ray grins wider than Ryan’s ever seen. “Fuck yeah.”

And after holding open the rooftop door for them both, Ryan slips his arm around Ray’s waist, and Ray doesn’t move away.

They get back to the crew with Ryan hiding a few hickeys (Ray’s a biter, who the fuck would’ve guessed - oh, wait, just about anyone) under his jacket collar. It takes two hours after their return until Gavin, of all people, happens to notice one while Ryan and Ray are standing in the kitchen.

Gavin squawks an incoherent noise. Then he manages to somehow ask Ryan how he got those hickeys if he was spending all of his time with Ray.

“Gavin, how the fuck do you think,” Ryan says.

Gavin stares at him for a good five seconds. Ryan can almost see the wheels squeakily turning in Gavin’s brain, scraping together with the effort of putting two and two together. Not that Gavin’s stupid - though he is, a lot of the time. It’s just not what anyone would think, which is why Ryan delights in it so much.

“You,” Gavin grinds out. “You and Ray?”

Ryan winks.

And Gavin makes the highest-pitched squeak yet. Ryan mentally puts himself down as a nominee for Gavin Sound Instigator of the year. He has to pretty much take himself off immediately when Gavin turns around only to end up facing Ray. Ray is holding a particularly wicked looking knife. Ryan sneaks a discreet look towards the butcher block. Yup. Knife missing.

“Ray,” Gavin begins, his voice descending to somewhat normal levels. “I’m totally not going to tell Geoff, look.”

Ray squints at him through his glasses. Gavin is not a good liar to other crew members, and the preemptive guilt is written all over him in ten foot tall letters. Just past Gavin, Ryan sees Ray’s fingers twitch on the edge of the knife. He reverses the grip in the way Ryan taught him in the apartment’s bed - a quick, smooth motion. Shows he’s been practicing. The motion warms Ryan’s heart just a little.

Gavin makes an even more birdlike noise and dodges right out of the kitchen, sprinting down the hallway.

“Gavin’s fucking running away from Ryan and Ray,” Michael says distantly, probably from the living room. “He’s a dead man.”

Jack’s voice, calm as ever. “Eh. He’ll make it.”

If Ryan listens, he can hear Gavin yelling Geoff’s name. Whoops. Someone’s trying to get Daddy involved.

Ray rolls his eyes. “Fucking idiot.”

“You should’ve thrown it at him. But missed.”

“Why didn’t you, then?”

Ryan grins a little and picks up his bottle of water. “Ray, please. I don’t miss. Not with knives, anyway.”

Ray snorts. “Yeah, you miss plenty with my rifle. Wasting good bullets.”

“You lost one of my knives.” He lowers his voice a little. “Look, I hope you’re not upset about me telling Gavin, which is really just me telling the whole crew.”

“Ryan,” Ray says easily. “Who cares? What’s Geoff going to say? _Hey, you two adults, don’t fuck_? He’s not our dad.”

“Holy shit,” Geoff says from the doorway. “Gavin wasn’t pulling my dick.”

Ryan offers Geoff a little wave and a sheepish smile. Gavin is a good three feet behind Geoff and a little to the left. Geoff folds his arms. A few seconds later, footsteps announce Michael and Jack’s arrival. Now the whole crew’s assembled, giving Ryan and Ray a quick once over that is really uncomfortable. And unnecessary.

Ray makes a sweeping gesture. “Boys. Please. One at a time. Yes, me and Ryan are what you could formally call a thing. We did the horizontal ma -”

“Ray,” Ryan interrupts. “They get it.”

A vein jumps in Geoff’s jaw. He blurts out _what the fuck, you two_ right as Michael goes _yeah, but was it any good_. Really, there are two kinds of people.

Ray tosses the knife back towards Ryan. Of course, Ryan catches it and walks it back over to the butcher block. They don’t need to be messy, after all. Something about that seems to shock everyone else out of their stupor. The R&R Connection is still the exact same as it was before - just with a little extra.

“Look,” Ray says, “I’m glad everyone knows now, and no one’s freaking out that bad.” Well, Gavin’s eyes are so wide that Ryan’s pretty sure he could fit both of his thumbs in one, but sure. No one’s freaking out. “So, with great relief, I’m really fucking excited to be able to make out with my boyfriend in my room in this penthouse without anyone busting in demanding to know why we’ve been in there for like, forty minutes. Thanks, everyone.”

Then Ray grabs Ryan’s hand tightly and wastes no time in maneuvering them through the rest of the statuesque crew.

“Don’t make too much noise,” Geoff requests faintly. “The rest of us fucking live here too.”

Jack pipes in: “Also, don’t kill each other or anything.” It’s really great advice, when you think about it.

Ryan gives him a little two-fingered salute as he goes by.

“Well, shit,” Michael says distantly as they turn the corner. “I guess _someone_ owes me twenty bucks. I mean you, Gavin.”

“Fuckers,” Ray grumbles. By this point he and Ryan are basically side by side, even if Ray’s still holding Ryan’s hand in something close to a death grip. “Assholes. Swear to God, if I liked them any less -”

“Don’t worry,” Ryan points out with a small laugh. “I’ve got forty minutes to help you forget about them.”

“We’re going to need the rest of my fucking life.”

Ryan loves him. That’s it. That’s all there is. Clean, and simple, and not something Shakespeare would be proud of.

“Okay,” he agrees, head light and tension strangely absent. “Turns out we’ve got that too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Ontario" by the Mountain Goats.


End file.
